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Funding Your Education 1997-98Applying for Financial Aid (part 3 of 3) |
CreditsSourceU.S. Department of Education's Office of Postsecondary EducationContentsCredits and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction Education after High School Paying Tuition and Other Costs Federal Pell Grants Campus-Based Aid Programs Federal and Direct Stafford Loans PLUS Loans (Loans for Parents) Stafford and PLUS Loan Questions Applying for Financial Aid Eligibility Criteria Deadlines and Verification Contacting the Department Reducing the Cost of School Taking the Next Step ForumsEducation and KidsRelated ArticlesPreparing Your Child For CollegeCollege Planning for Gifted and Talented Youth Getting Ready for College Advising High School Students with Learning Disabilities |
How do I provide the required FAFSA Express signatures?If you have a printer available, the computer you're using will print a signature page after you transmit your FAFSA Express data to the CPS. You must sign this page and, if you were required to include your parents' financial information when completing the application, you must have a parent sign this page too. After all the required signatures are on the page, you must mail it to the CPS. The address is preprinted on the envelope that is included with the FAFSA Express diskettes. The address will also print on the signature page so that students who download FAFSA Express from the World Wide Web will be able to mail in their signature pages. In about three weeks, you will receive a SAR in the mail. What if I don't mail in the FAFSA Express signature page?Your application will be processed when the CPS receives your data, but unless you mail in your signature page within 14 days of transmitting your data, you will receive a SAR without an Expected Family Contribution (EFC), which a financial aid office must have to award you federal student aid. After waiting 14 days, the CPS will generate the SAR. You will receive it about a week after it has been generated. You must sign the SAR and return it to the CPS. Any schools listed on your application will receive your application data even if you don't provide the CPS with a signature page. Until you do so, however, you will not have an EFC, and your school cannot award you any federal student aid. Once the CPS receives the signed SAR, the CPS will reprocess your data and send you a revised SAR. The CPS will also send your selected schools your revised application information record indicating that you have provided the required signatures. What if I don't have a printer available?When you begin using FAFSA Express, the program will ask you whether a printer is available to you. If one is not available, you should answer "no." The CPS will process your application immediately and send you a SAR without an EFC within a week of receiving the transmission of your data. The CPS will not wait 14 days to generate a SAR. You must sign the SAR and return it to the CPS. Again, any schools listed on your application will not receive your application data until the CPS receives your signed SAR. Once the CPS receives the signed SAR, the CPS will reprocess your data and send you the resulting SAR and send your selected schools revised application information records indicating that you have provided the required signatures. How will I know my application data have been processed?Your FAFSA Express data will be processed when the CPS receives your transmission. In about a week, you will receive a SAR in the mail. Your paper FAFSA comes with a postcard that you can mail to the CPS with your application. If you choose to mail in the postcard, the CPS will stamp it with the date your FAFSA is received and will mail it back to you. Your FAFSA will be processed in approximately four weeks from the date you mail it. Then, you'll receive a SAR in the mail. The SAR will repeat the information that you transmitted to the CPS or that you put on your paper FAFSA. If the information you provided is complete, your SAR will also have your EFC. The EFC determines how much federal student aid you can get. As we stated earlier, the schools you listed on your application will also get a report of your processing results. After you receive the SAR in the mail, you should check it carefully for mistakes. You can fix any mistakes by writing the correct answers on Part 2 of the SAR in the column labeled, "Write in only new or corrected information," and mailing the SAR back. Or your college or career school might be able to process corrections electronically for you. Make sure you keep a photocopy of your SAR. If you apply electronically at your college or career school, your FAFSA will be processed in about a week. The results will be sent electronically to your school, and you'll get a SAR Information Acknowledgement in the mail. It's a good idea to get a printout of your processing results from your school. You can check the information on your SAR Information Acknowledgement, but you cannot make corrections on it. Your school will have to make any corrections electronically, or you will have to get a copy of your SAR to make corrections on. You can get a copy of your SAR from our Federal Student Aid Information Center. The address and telephone number are Federal Student Aid Information Center
Stafford and PLUS Loan Questions |
